Last week, with the help of a very entertaining read-aloud by the title Ask Me (Bernard Waber), we talked with our PK2 students about how people ask questions. Our young inquirers did a wonderful job in identifying some of the questions the characters in the book (a young girl and her father who take a walk together) ask each other. Next, our PK2 students practised asking each other questions and had much fun with it - especially since the questions could be about anything, and no one had to give any answers. We got to hear many different questions, students using different kinds of question words/question starters.

This week as we began a new author inquiry, our PK2 students had the opportunity to ask more questions, this time about the author and illustrator Grace Lin. After briefly revisiting what we had found out last week about asking questions and in particular the words that start a question, our students shared a wide variety of questions in no time:

What is her name?

What country is she from?

What kinds of books does she make?

What other books has she made?

What does she use to make her books?

How does she make her books?

How did she get the idea to make a book about dim sum?

How do her books get to our library?

Where does she live?

Where does she work?

Where does she make her books?

Where can we get her books?

Does she travel?

Why does she make books?

Why are some of her books so short?

Over the next couple of weeks, we will try to find answers to our questions - and surely ask more questions because usually finding an answer leads to new wonderings. We will read and enjoy Grace Lin's beautiful stories, explore the illustrations and share with each other what we are noticing and finding out.

If you would like to find out more about the author and illustrator already now, I can highly recommend visiting her website.

Even though our fourth graders just embarked on a new inquiry around author and illustrator Allen Say, they are already fascinated and intrigued, especially because the illustrations in his picture books are so detailed that on first sight they appear to be photographs. One of our students also mentioned - a comment that was met with much approval from her classmates - that he looks like he would be a really nice grandfather, if he is a grandfather, friendly, calm and gentle. So an immediate connection was made between our fourth graders and Allen Say. Consequently, it was not surprising that students had much to share, what they noticed from looking at the covers of the books and what these observations made them wonder about.

Here are some of the observations students made:
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He is an author & illustrator.

He makes picture books.

The main genres he writes seem to be realistic fiction, historical fiction and memoir.

His illustration are very realistic.

The illustrations and cover art show a very distinctive and recognisable style.

The characters and settings seem all Asian.

The books/cover art is very inviting, makes the reader curious about the books.

He seems to be very successful, having had so many books published.​

Here are some of the wonderings and questions students have:
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What does he like better, writing or illustrating?

Does he only make picture books?

Are his stories based on real people, on personal experiences, his life?

How does he get his ideas?

What inspired him to make picture books?

Why did he chose to become an artist instead of following in his father's footsteps?

How did he become an author?

How many books has he written?

Is he American, Japanese or both?

Does he carry a writer's notebook?

Over the next couple of weeks, we will try to find answers to these questions, and probably more. In the process, we will also revisit a wide range of inquiry skills, such as the various search strategies and material arrangement for example. We will read and talk about some of Allen Say's books, which often touch on the theme of migration, therefore allowing connections with our fourth graders' current unit of inquiry under the transdisciplinary theme Where We Are In Place And Time, exploring migration. I am looking forward to sharing the wonderful stories, told so beautifully in words and pictures, with our students, and learning with them more about Allen Say and about migration.

Our first graders are enthusiastic inquirers, in the library and in their classroom. No matter the topic - related to a new author or a unit of inquiry - they always have lots of questions and wonderings to share and then enjoy searching for the answers. They already know that there are different ways to inquire into and learn more about a topic: reading books and exploring websites for example. But it seems that what they enjoy the most - no LOVE - is getting answers from the experts.

As you can see from the tweets above, as part of our author inquiry about Amy Krouse Rosenthal (if you missed the previous post, click here), we reached out to the author via Twitter to get answers to questions we hadn't been able to answer with information gained from reading her books and exploring her website. And hooray, the wonderful Miss Amy replied! You should have seen the reactions from our students when I showed them her responses: excitement, cheers and some students in total awe of the fact that someone so famous would make the time to interact with us.

This week, our first graders had more opportunities to interact with and learn from an expert. As part of their current unit of inquiry under the transdisciplinary theme Where We Are In Place And Time, students are inquiring about different kinds of shelter. During inquiry circles, which are a collaboration between classroom and library, they get to share their personal wonderings, search for answers in various ways to then share their learning with everyone else in the class. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr. Benson, an engineer by profession who makes sure that everything in our school building works perfectly, joined us to talk with our students. Patiently, he answered all their questions. I could tell our students enjoyed learning from him while also sharing with him some of the knowledge they had already acquired from books and websites. A big THANK YOU to Mr. Benson!

Next week, as our inquiries continue, first graders will be able to speak to another expert, an architect this time, finding more answers to their questions while practising important skills (e.g. asking questions and follow-up questions, listening attentively, restating the learned in their own words). Stay tuned to find out more!

(If you have expertise that you are willing to share during one of our inquiry circles, kindly complete the survey we recently sent out via email. Thank you!)​

As part of our inquiry about Michael Morpurgo (click here if you missed the previous post), which also serves to revisit all major inquiry skills, our fifth graders are currently looking into the big ideas of citation: WHY it is important to cite all sources we use, WHAT kind of information goes into a citation and HOW a citation is crafted.

With the amount of information, images and ideas freely available on the Internet, it is at times easy to forget that these were created by others who deserve to be acknowledged. As a provocation to thinking about and experiencing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of plagiarism - when someone else is taking credit for what we have created - we asked students in groups to represent in pictures and words The Butterfly Lion, the book we are currently reading together. We promised a special surprise for the best poster. Just before announcing the winner, we asked students to switch places to then erase the names on the poster and replace it with their own. Most students seemed to feel really uncomfortable with this idea and once the "winning" poster/team was announced they loudly complained. This sparked a great conversation about plagiarism and how to avoid it by giving credit to the sources we use. (And everybody's mind was again put at ease when students realized what the purpose of this activity had been and that everybody would be receiving a special surprise :)

In the following activity, it didn't take our fifth graders long to figure out the big pieces of information that go into a citation and the order in which this information appears (in APA, the style format used throughout HKA):
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WHO made it - author
WHEN was it made - date of publication
WHAT is it called - title of book, website, webpage, article etc.
WHERE was it published - place of publication (in the case of websites the respective URL).

Next week, we will practise creating citations for the resources we used in inquiring about Michael Morpurgo. Technology has made citing sources, in particular the formatting of the citations, pretty easy through online tools like EasyBib. Below is a tutorial on using the EasyBib add-on in Google docs which students will be using for this purpose.

​Choice is one of the key elements in motivating readers and learners; it is also key in any inquiry classroom. Nothing engages and excites our students more than when they are getting to chose: what they want to read, what they want to learn and how they go about their learning and sharing it. With this blog post, I wanted to show you some examples of what this looks like in the library for grade 2, with some photos from this past week.

After wrapping up our author inquiry about Mem Fox (if you have missed the last post, click here) recently, our second graders got the opportunity to decide which author they would like to inquire about next. When they arrived at the library for their weekly visit, they found four stations with the books by four different authors set up. In groups, they got to explore the books and record any wonderings they might have as a result of this exploration.

It was beautiful seeing our students so engaged, so focused, so excited. After having spent time at each table, students made a blind vote and Julia Donaldson was selected by both classes as their candidate for our next author inquiry. However, during check out, there was much interest for the books of the other authors as well (and by the way, this is of course another example for choice in our library: our students choose their own books, following their personal interests).

As part of their current unit of inquiry under the transdisciplinary theme Sharing the Planet, we are currently collaborating with the classroom teachers in running inquiry circles over a period of about three weeks. During these inquiry circles, our second graders get to look for answers to their personal questions and wonderings related to this unit. You should experience the energy and buzz in the classrooms as students share their wonderings and thoughts with each other, as they look through books and websites, speak with experts, and discuss what they are discovering - it's amazing!

I will share more about inquiry circles with you once we have completed this round. Stay tuned to see our young inquirers in action (I am taking lots of photos and video footage) - and for the time being, enjoy a few snapshots from the past week.

Today while grade 3 visited the library, we spent some time talking about what readers do, what characterises them, and our third graders had no trouble sharing lots and lots of ideas. They said that readers read, find time to read every day, choose all different kinds of books, think, talk and write about their books, and have favourite books, authors and series, to mention just some of their ideas. They were surprised to discover that their ideas more or less matched the characteristics of lifelong readers identified by reading expert Donalyn Miller in her book Reading in the Wild:

Lifelong readers dedicate time to read, self-select reading materials, share books and reading with other readers, have reading plans and show preferences. ​

Next, I introduced our students to a tool that will support them in being readers and becoming lifelong readers: the Destiny Quest App (DQ). Below is a brief introduction to Destiny Quest, which helps our readers especially with the book selection process and in making reading plans.

Being confident in exploring and trying out new technology, our third graders had a wonderful time using the app right away to find books to check out today. There was so much excitement about being able to independently search our catalog to then walk directly to the shelf to find the respective book.

I loved not only hearing the excitement over discovering favorite books but enjoyed especially seeing students work together, helping each other out, in locating the books they had discovered through their searches in the online catalog. I encourage you to ask your third grader to show you how the Destiny Quest App works if you have an iPad at home; or access it on your computer through our library catalog(click on Hong Kong Academy > Catalog > Destiny Quest).

Here a brief overview on how to get the Destiny Quest App and its main features. We will explore these more with our third graders over the next couple of weeks.

It hasn't even been three months since our youngest students started visiting the library and yet it seems they are already little experts. Each week, they amaze us with their confidence in participating in all we do in the library, displaying many learner profile traits and attitudes - as you can see in the snapshots below:

Attentive listeners during our read-alouds (we have just begun reading books from the Hairy MacLary series by Lynley Dodd);

Knowledgeable communicators who share their ideas about the stories, making connections to other books and personal experiences;

Thinkers as they explore and select books they want to check out; communicators as they share and talk about their book choices with classmates and teachers/librarians;

Patient and caring as they wait for their turn in the check out line;

Independent in finding their folders and packing their books after check out.

While we will continue to explore the work of another author and illustrator (Lynley Dodd) over the next couple of weeks, continuing to encourage students to make connections between stories and with personal experiences, we will look especially at the book selection process. We encourage you to engage your child in conversations about the books they bring home from the library, in particular, what made them chose a specific book.

I think most of us have been closely following the weather this week, especially keeping an eye on the two typhoons heading in the direction of Hong Kong. While the first one brought lots of rain but allowed us mostly to continue with our regular day and schedule, with Typhoon Haima, which hasn't reached us yet, it was decided to better stay safely at home. I hope you are enjoying this day at home, getting to sleep a bit longer and taking it slow and easy throughout the day.

Hopefully, you checked out some books to enjoy while visiting the library this week. Days like today are such a wonderful gift to spend some additional time enjoying a good story, in a cozy reading spot, either reading alone or having a read-aloud with a family member or friend. Maybe you even have a cup of tea or hot cocoa and some cookies to make your reading time and this typhoon day extra special.

Fortunately, I always have lots of books ready to read, a whole pile to choose from. The three in the photo are just the ones that I am considering for today. Two of them are set in Australia, the other in Ethiopia. Since I have never read a book set in Ethiopia, that's the one I have just begun reading. A young boy, who is apparently an amazing runner, is asked by his grandfather to accompany him to the capital city, Addis Ababa. It will be a full day's walk for the two. Can you imagine that, having to walk an entire day to get from your home into the city? This boy's life is definitely very different from ours here in Hong Kong.

If you have Internet access, you could also spend some time exploring our wonderful online resources through the Primary Portal.I especially love recommending the Tumble Book Library. While I know that many of our younger readers use it regularly, I don't think many of our older readers do, even though there are lots of resources for them as well. So if you are in grades 3-5, I encourage you in particular to check out Tumble Books today. I bet you will be surprised to discover amongst others even graphic novels to read, National Geographic videos to watch and full text novels alongside the much loved and well-known animated picture books.You could also spend some time looking through the many amazing wonderings on Wonderopolis. Today's wonder talks about making music with glasses. That might even be a project you like to try out while being at home today.

Maybe you even like to share what you are doing today in a comment to this post? Do you have a book to recommend, an online resource you think others should try, an idea for a special project? Share it with us through the blog. We would love to hear about it!​​Stay safe today and have a lovely day!

I hope everyone had a lovely October break, lots of fun times and rest. The week was over pretty quickly, I am sure everyone feels the same way, but I look forward to seeing you all back in school on Monday. As always, I am especially curious to hear about books you enjoyed reading during the break. In this post, I am sharing with you what I have read and encourage you to add your books in the comment section - or tell me about it in person when you visit the library. I have sorted the books in the various categories and added a brief synopsis from Goodreads for each book. Very different books and not just with regard to the format - picture book, full print novel, illustrated novel, graphic novel, audiobook - but also very much regarding genre - realistic fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy - and topic. I loved that the settings took me to different parts of the world: to Venice in Italy, to Ghana, to Denmark, to England, to the United States of America and to somewhere in Asia. The biggest surprise I experienced while reading Ghosts, ​Raina Teglemeier's brand new graphic novel - never would I have imagined fighting with tears reading this book and yet I did, as I was deeply touched by parts of the story. And just in case you are wondering: we have copies of Ghosts,Figgy in the World, How to Catch a Bogle and Ophelia in our library :)

Children's Literature:

A Morning with Grandpa by Sylvia Liu"Mei Mei s grandpa is practicing tai chi in the garden, and Mei Mei is eager to join in. As Gong Gong tries to teach her the slow, graceful movements, Mei Mei enthusiastically does them with her own flair. Then Mei Mei takes a turn, trying to teach Gong Gong the yoga she learned in school. Will Gong Gong be able to master the stretchy, bendy poses? Winner of Lee & Low's New Voices Award, A Morning with Grandpa celebrates, with lively spirit and humor, the special bond between grandparent and grandchild and the joy of learning new things together. Readers of all ages will want to try out some tai chi and yoga too!"

Heartsong by Kevin Crossley-Holland"Abandoned at the orphanage in Venice as a baby, Laura is mute. Her life is transformed when the composer Vivaldi unlocks her passion for music. The seasons turn, dark turns to light and miracles happen. Carnegie award-winning author, Kevin Crossley-Holland makes every word a masterstroke. This short novel is exquisitely illustrated by acclaimed artist, Jane Ray. Her work is inspired by Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the real girls and boys who lived and laughed and worked in the Venetian Orphanage."

Figgy in the World by Tamsin Janu"Figgy has two problems. One is her name. Nobody in Ghana has that name. The other is that her grandmother is ill and needs special medicine. Figgy can't do much about her name, but she can do something for Grandma Ama. She will go to America and bring back the medicine, and Kwame, her special goat, will go with her. Out in the wide world she will meet some bad people, but she will also find good friends."

Middle Grades Literature:

Ghosts by Raina Teglemeier"Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake - and her own."

How to Catch a Bogle by Catherine Jinks"If ever a chill entered her soul, or the hope suddenly drained from her heart, she knew a bogle was to blame. Birdie McAdam, a ten-year-old orphan, is tougher than she looks. She's proud of her job as apprentice to Alfred the Bogler, a man who catches monsters for a living. Birdie lures the bogles out of their lairs with her sweet songs, and Alfred kills them before they kill her. On the mean streets of Victorian England, hunting bogles is actually less dangerous work than mudlarking for scraps along the vile river Thames. (See glossary!) Or so it seems—until the orphans of London start to disappear . . ."

Ophelia by Jackie French"Following on from I AM JULIET (August 2014), this is the second title in a proposed new series for young people that focuses on the reinterpretation of Shakespeare's classic and enduring plays. Ages: 10+ She is the girl who will be queen: Ophelia, daughter of Denmark's lord chancellor and loved by Prince Hamlet. But while Hamlets family stab, poison or haunt one another, Ophelia plans a sensible rule, one filled with justice and the making of delicious cheeses. Even if she has to pretend to be mad to make it happen, Ophelia will let nothing, not even howling ghosts, stand in her way. This is Shakespeare's play, but with what might also have happened behind the scenes. And this story has a happy ending. From Jackie French, one of Australia's most respected and awarded authors and the Australian Children's Laureate and 2015 Senior Australian of the Year, comes a book that reimagines the life of one of Shakespeare's most intriguing female characters."

Young Adult Literature:Replica by Lauren Oliver"Gemma has been in and out of hospitals since she was born. 'A sickly child', her lonely life to date has revolved around her home, school and one best friend, Alice. But when she discovers her father's connection to the top secret Haven research facility, currently hitting the headlines and under siege by religious fanatics, Gemma decides to leave the sanctuary she's always known to find the institute and determine what is going on there and why her father's name seems inextricably linked to it. Amidst the frenzy outside the institute's walls, Lyra - or number 24 as she is known as at Haven - and a fellow experimental subject known only as 72, manage to escape. Encountering a world they never knew existed outside the walls of their secluded upbringing , they meet Gemma and, as they try to understand Haven's purpose together, they uncover some earth-shattering secrets that will change the lives of both girls forever... "

The read-a-thon at Hong Kong Academy is a longstanding tradition in connection with our yearly Literacy Week. Our fourth graders, who for the first time last year supported the library team in running the read-a-thon, had decided that all money raised should be in support of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong (BMABHK), a Hong Kong based NGO that aims to promote family literacy and the access to quality children's literature. Thanks to our wonderful readers and their generous sponsors, we raised enough money to finance the installation of three book case libraries. The first one went to Sai Kung Central Lee Siu Yam Memorial School (LSY), the primary school right across the road from HKA (click this link to read more about it). Last Friday, Ms. Alison, Ms. Anita, Ms. Kim and I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the second book case library and had a chance to meet and read with the children at Diamond Hill Baptist Church Bright Blossoms Kindergarten.

We were warmly received by the principal, teachers and students at the kindergarten as well as the representatives from BMABHK. It was exciting to see the wonderful selection of books - both in English and Chinese - chosen as well as the gift plate that carries the name of our school. With the help of Ms. Anita, who spoke to the children in Cantonese, we shared a bit about how the money for the books was raised by our HKA community as well as pointing out that many of the books on the shelf are known and enjoyed by our students too. Then the official ribbon cutting took place and the children were finally able to get to explore the books - I could tell that was the part they had been eagerly waiting for.

As you can see in the pictures above, we had a wonderful time reading with the children and they with us. There is no doubt that these books will be loved, treasured and read over and over again.

We will have one more book case library to install here in Sai Kung and will attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony with all of our grade 4 students on November 11. Our "new" fourth graders have already agreed to take on the organization of this year's read-a-thon and attending the ribbon cutting ceremony will be a great way for them to gather first hand information on who benefits from the money that will be raised. I have no doubt that our fourth graders will be wonderful ambassadors for this worthy cause.